True Blue? Locality of pottery decorations during the Middle Bronze: The case of Red, White and Blue Ware

Abstract

Around 30 painted pottery sherds were selected for pXRF and Raman Spectroscopy testing to study the chemical and mineralogical composition of their pigments. These sherds originated from two significant Middle Bronze Age sites located in the Southern Levant, i.e., Ashkelon and Tel Azekah, and belong to a ceramic group referred to by scholars as Red, White, and Blue Ware (RWB). Examples of this type of ceramic ware have been unearthed at multiple sites during the last century. However, hitherto no analysis of the pigments’ composition has been performed. Our results demonstrate the use of three well-known pigment recipes: Red Ochre, White Lime, and Carbon Black and indicate that the pottery and pigments were locally made from available materials at each site. It is possible that the specific way in which Carbon Black was applied to the pottery was an attempt to imitate Egyptian decoration style.